The adjudicator stood in the center of the room staring at the ceiling and paused. None of us spoke or even breathed. Not that we really cared what he had to say, for we were rebellious high school students more interested in the party than the practice. Still, his presence held fast our attention. There was no looking away or even breathing, until.

"What IS jazzzz?" boomed from the center of the room. His voice was more than any of us expected. We stood in silence. Afraid.

Not a single word he said beyond that would ever be remembered by the 30 of us there. What is jazz? would be quoted for the rest of the year and written in every one of our yearbooks on the last day of school. It would take on new meaning and applied in many different contexts while we tried to be silly, irrational, or psuedo-intellectual. Boys and girls alike would lower their pitch to a rumble 2 octaves higher than the original question.

It anchored a forgettable event forever in our memories, even if it was the only thing we remembered from that day at the high school jazz festival. I do remember that our band director did give him an earful afterward about being so hard on us. He told him it was his choice and not ours.

To this day, I've never seen such a negative response to Roll Over Beethoven